Read Ebook: The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West by Rogers W H Hamilton William Henry Hamilton Gibbs Roscoe Illustrator

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Entering the church by the south porch, a survey of the south aisle arcade, brings the eye at once to the memorial we are in search of.

The monument is under the second arch of the nave, west of the transept, in the south aisle. It consists of a high tomb with canopy, flanked by an entrance-doorway forming part of one composition, extending the whole breadth of the arch. This was originally one of the enclosing screens of a Chantry, the other two, east and west, dividing it from the aisle having been removed. In the wall of the aisle opposite the tomb, is a two-storied piscina, which was formerly within the area of the Chantry, and against the east division doubtless stood the antient altar.

The cover-stone of the tomb is Purbeck marble, and on it are the indents of a knight and lady, but not of large size. The knight's head appears to have rested on a helmet with lambrequin, and an animal was at his feet. The lady in long robe and head on a cushion. Two shields were above their heads, and two more below their feet. There was no ledger-line.

The canopy is of square form, flanked by buttresses pinnacled on their faces, and the groining within shews five fan-traceried pendants. At the east end is a large niche, the west is open. The doorway is surmounted by a rich ogee crocketted canopy with finial, and is panelled above.

In the churchyard, near the porch, is a large broken Purbeck marble stone, probably removed from the pavement of the Chantry within. On it are the indents of a knight, and lady in horned head-dress, under an ogee crocketted canopy, flanked by pinnacles, evidently of contemporary date with the tomb. Above the figures are two shields, below their feet the space is powdered with scrolls, and a ledger-line enclosed the whole.

Back to the railway station again, and a place among the cohort of the iron horse, for a long journey is before us, even from the open, breezy chalk-plains of Wiltshire, to the marge of the majestic Tamar in westernmost Devon, and the granite-bouldered precincts of east Cornwall, where we hope to get further clue to the haunts of Willoughby when in the flesh. Here, we are leaving what was probably his first home and earliest associations before ambition dawned on his future path; there, we shall visit his later possessions when the sun of fortune had shone on him, and he basked in its rays of honours and wealth. There also our pilgrimage will eventually lead us to that last house, the which he in common with earth's humblest denizen must share.

Before, however, we proceed further on our way to what we may term his second home, it behoves us to say something anent the antecedents and coming of the knight himself, and how the name of Willoughby originally became located in the west country. Like many a younger son rejoicing in a titled extraction, coupled with probably only a slender portion of the family patrimony, the wooing of a distaff--who, beside let us hope, being endowed with her full share of love's talisman, personal attractions, enjoyed also the further potent charm of being an heiress to boot--brought the father of our knight from the fens of Lincolnshire to the distant altitudes of Wilts, and in winning the hand of Anne Cheney for a wife, subsequently became in her right the Lord of Broke. A similar errand sent his son away to the boundary line that divides Devon from Cornwall, and with the well-dowered Blanche Champernowne of Beer-Ferrers for his helpmate, there to find his future home, and where we propose to look for him again, after we have gossiped over his lineage awhile.

Burke.

His great-grandson was Robert, fourth Lord Willoughby; he married first Alice daughter of Sir William Skipwith, and secondly Margaret daughter of William, Lord Zouch, who died in 1391. His third son Sir Thomas by Alice Skipwith, married Elizabeth daughter of John de Nevill, Lord Nevill of Raby, and Elizabeth Latimer his second wife, only daughter of William, fourth Lord Latimer of the first creation, who died in 1388. Sir Thomas was succeeded by his son Sir John Willoughby, who married Joan Welby, described as an heiress, and their son was the Sir John Willoughby, who married Anne daughter of Sir Edmond Cheney, of Broke, Wilts; whose son was Sir Robert Willoughby, the first Lord Willoughby de Broke, and subject of our little memoir. There were three other sons, William of Turners-Piddle, Dorset, who died in 1512, and was buried at Bere-Regis; Thomas, who married Isabel Bedyke of Silton, Dorset, died 1523, and ordered his body to be buried in the church there; and Edward, Dean of Exeter Cathedral, and Canon of St. George's, Windsor, who died in 1508. Also two daughters, Cicely, Abbess of Wilton, who died in 1528, and Elizabeth, married to William Carrant, of Toomer in Henstridge, Somerset.

The fine and almost perfect memorial brass of this lady is in the chancel of Spilsby church, Lincolnshire. She is habited in cote-hardie with mantle over, crenulated head-dress with coverchief, two dogs with collars and bells at her feet, her head rests on richly embroidered cushions. On the ledger-line is this inscription,

and these arms: 1. MORTIMER.--2. UFFORD and BEC quarterly, as borne by Lord Willoughby de Eresby.--3. Ros.--4. Wells.--5. Bohun.--6. Zouch.--7. Beaumont.--8. Willoughby impaling Zouch. At the angles are the emblems of the four Evangelists. There are also two other splendid figures, probably the succeeding baron and his lady, in the same chancel.

Thus far for the coming of the knight; our next care will be to trace, as far as means available enable us, his progress and actions during the eventful days in which he lived. The strife between the contending factions of the Red and White Roses, in his younger years was strongly predominant, and so thoroughly had the fierce rivalry for supreme power permeated society, that probably it was almost impossible to remain neutral, while men so blindly, yet withal so devotedly, risked their lives and fortunes in partizanship with the contending claimants of the divine right. To choose a side was an absolute necessity,--

"Under which king, Bezonian? speak or die!"

Our clue as to his movements, for a short time, becomes one of surmise rather than of actual proof. At the dispersal of Buckingham's followers, Sir Robert and his attainted companions fled to Brittany, and he remained probably with them at Vannes or the neighbourhood, until the Earl of Richmond set out on his final expedition from Harfleur to Milford-Haven. This he doubtless accompanied, although no special mention is made of his name, nor as to his taking part in the engagement at Bosworth, where however he must have been present from circumstances that followed. Dugdale says "he was a successful sharer in the benefit of that great victory," another thing to that of sharing its danger.

A much more important event however, identifying the presence of Sir Robert at Bosworth, or immediately near, and shewing the confidence the victor placed in him, was Richmond despatching the knight, the day after the battle, and before Henry left Leicester, with a detachment of horse to the castle of Sheriff-Hutton in Yorkshire, to convoy the unfortunate Earl of Warwick , then a prisoner there, to the still safer and more dangerous custody of the Tower of London, only to emerge eventually from thence to his death on the scaffold.

This mission is thus described by the old chronicler Hall. Henry in order

"to obsist the first likely mischiefe, sent before his departure from Leycestre Sir Robert Willoghby knight to the maner of Sheryhutton in the County of Yorke for Edward Plantagenet Erle of Warwike sonne and heire to George Duke of Clarence then beyng of the age of xv yeres, whom Kyng Richard had kept there as a prisoner durynge the tyme of his vsurped reigne. Sir Robert Willoghby accordynge to hys commission receaved of the conestable of the castle the Erle Edward, and him conueighed to London, where the youngelynge borne to perpetual calamitie was incontynent in the towre of London putt under safe and sure custody."

The circumstances connected with the inveiglement of this poor boy,--who for fifteen out of the twenty-four years he had lived, had been a close prisoner, and so shut out from all knowledge of the outer world, that he was said "not to know a goose from a capon,"--into a confession of complicity with Perkin Warbeck's attempt, and then his barbarous murder,--for it was nothing less,--on Tower Hill, is one of the darkest of the many selfishly revengeful crimes that stain with indelible cruelty the reign of the first Tudor king, as the equally detestable slaying of the lad's aged sister the Countess of Salisbury, in 1541, appals by the horror of its incidents, the second. "The truth was," says Rapin, "the real crime that cost him his life, was his being the last male heir of the house of York." He was beheaded 14 Nov., 1499, and Sir Robert lived to witness the wretched fate of the noble youth he had four years previously brought a captive to London, and in his death the extinction of the hope of the White Rose.

At the conclusion of Henry's first Parliament in 1485, in company with his friend Sir Giles Daubeney, Sir Robert had the honour of the peerage conferred on him, by the title of BARON WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE, but the writ of summons does not appear to have been issued until 12 August, 1492. About the same time he was constituted one of the king's Privy Council. In 1489, he was created a Knight of the Garter, being the two hundred and forty-fourth on the roll of that noble order.

Here he remained in inglorious ease until November, when the little army, with the exception of the five hundred left to occupy the "cautionary towns" until payment for the expedition was made, returned; during which time, and for a considerable portion of the year ensuing, a game of dissimulation and feints at fighting was carried on between the three monarchs, Henry, Charles, and Maximilian, practically over the destiny of the young Duchess.

Maximilian in his turn sent ambassadors over to the wary calculating Henry, then holding the scales between the monarchs, as he was at the same time also engaged in negociations with Charles, who was procrastinating and not intending to give any definite answer, nor but little frightened at Henry's preparations, as he was well assured within himself how matters would eventually terminate.

Henry was however seriously annoyed at the French king's dissimulation, and despatched with all speed a little expedition of a thousand men over to Calais, the command being entrusted to the Lords Morley and Willoughby de Broke. Lord Daubeney was at that period Governor of Calais, and to this force he added another thousand men, drawn from the garrisons of Calais, Hammes, and Guisnes; and they had "secret instructions to aid Maximilian and raise the siege of Dixmude" where the citizens, soldiers, and their allies were encamped. The English soldiers appear to have stolen an effective surprise upon the Flemings and their French allies in the night, for they had apparently no idea of the attack, and routed them with great slaughter, said to have been eight thousand in number, while only a hundred or thereabout of the English were killed, a statement to be received with caution, as Lord Morley, Sir James Tyrrell, Captain of Guisnes, Sir Humphrey Talbot, Marshal of Calais, Sir Gilbert Talbot, and others, were among the slain. The pursuit over, the English army retired to Newport, where Marshal d'Esquerdes appears to have followed and attacked them without result. As this was the first touch of real hostilities, such as they were, between Henry and Charles, for the time it "bred a great coldness" between the belligerent monarchs.

But the coldness did not last long, and meanwhile a complete tangle of matters enveloped these three royal players, over the destiny of their hostage the girl-princess of Brittany, secretly wedded by proxy to Maximilian, practically a prisoner in her little kingdom, unprotected, and in the eyes of the French king a very desirable alliance for him, and so incorporate that province under the crown of France, of which nation it formed an integral portion. Ambassadors came over from the Duchess to sound Henry's intentions of protection toward her, others were despatched across in February, 1491, to the French king by Henry, and these were followed again by further ambassadors from Ann, vainly waiting in London for an answer. So things progressed, and Charles who by his agents was busily plying the young Duchess with his suit, in his turn amused the English envoys, until he found he had won her and had the game in hand; then he cut the knot of the difficulty by marrying her 16 Dec., 1491, and Henry's ambassadors returned discomfited.

This climax came as a bomb-shell among the great personages. Maximilian was furious at the loss of his bride, and threatened immediate invasion of France for so deadly an affront; this however did not much trouble Charles. What he was most concerned with was the attitude of Henry who was also greatly enraged, and who, beside openly boasting he should at once prepare for war against him, was also influencing Ferdinand of Spain--whose daughter Katharine was espoused to his son Arthur--to join him in the conflict. Thus France was threatened on three sides at once, Charles however had little fear of Maximilian or Ferdinand.

In the meantime Henry had another trouble nearer his door, with the Scotch, and no settlement appeared to be in view, while the complication in France continued, the French king being probably moving behind to prevent. Ambassadors again came over from Charles to negociate, but Henry who had the ulterior object of getting well paid for what he was about to do, and the old debt due by Ann of Brittany discharged, aided by liberal subsidies from Parliament, assembled an army of twenty-five thousand foot, and sixteen hundred horse, and on the second of October crossed over to Calais, to make conditions on his adversary's soil, never meaning to fight, but by show and menaces, see what he could get.

The conduct of this large flotilla, which arrived at Calais the same day, was under the command of Lord Willoughby de Broke, as Lord High Admiral; a notable piece of seamanship for the age, and shewing that at the time England had a considerable reserve of shipping.

This appears to have been the last foreign service in which Lord Willoughby de Broke was engaged. We do not find his name among the generals of the king's army employed in the suppression of the Cornish revolt at Black-Heath, nor otherwise engaged at home, until the landing of Perkin Warbeck at Whitsand Bay in September, 1498, when he held a command in the royal forces under Henry in his march to the west to meet the plebeian pretender to his crown. Lord Willoughby de Broke came to Taunton with Lord Daubeney and others commanding the troops, and after Perkin's return as a captive from Beaulieu, went on with Henry to Exeter. There the king dealt with the insurgents personally, many of whom came with halters round their necks sueing for pardon, and having punished some, to use his own words, "grant unto the residue generally our grace and pardon, and our Commissioners, the Earl of Devon, our Chamberlain, and our Steward of Household, have done, and do daily, in our County of Cornwall."

The 'Steward of Household' was Lord Willoughby de Broke, and he was peculiarly fitted for the duty, not only on account of his relationship by property with the County, but also by virtue of his position as Steward of the Duchy of Cornwall. This was apparently his last public employment of any note, and probably age was stealing on him, as he died four years afterward.

Of the offices and honours conferred on him by Henry, we find those of Lord Steward of the Household, Steward of the Duchy of Cornwall, and alternately that of Captain-General or Marshal of the land forces, and as an Admiral of the fleet, in the king's expeditions to France, also a chief Commander of the forces when engaged at home. He was called to the Privy Council, created a Baron by writ of summons, and subsequently elected a Knight of the Garter.

Thus far have we proceeded with Lord Willoughby de Broke's public services abroad and at home; our next care must be to glance at his domestic surroundings, and what constrained him to leave his old ancestral place of Broke Hall amid the breezy altitudes of north Wilts, and find his way to the sheltered banks by Tamar's marge, in south Devon. Nothing in any way singular or unusual, simply that potent cause which has tempted many a young man to stray far away from his father's roof-tree, brought Robert Willoughby down to Beer-Ferrers,--the search for a wife,--and the lady he selected was endowed with one, at least, most attractive charm, eagerly sought after by mediaeval knight--and not altogether lost sight of, by suitors in these, in some respects not much-improved mercenary, unchivalric modern days of ours,--she was an heiress, largely dowered with the home possessions of an antient race, of whom she was there the sole representative in right of her grandmother, one of three sisters, coheiresses, its last descendants; while on her father's side she was also the only survivor of a branch of another of the most time-honoured names in the county.

Blanche Champernowne was the pleasant name of the distaff that Robert Willoughby won for his bride. She was the only daughter of John Champernowne of Beer-Ferrers by Elizabeth Bigbury his wife, which John succeeded his elder brother Roger who died without issue. He was the second son of Alexander Champernowne , by his wife Joan, daughter and coheiress of Martyn Ferrers, who, says Pole "was the last of y^t name of Ferrers, Lord of Beere-Ferrers." Alexander was son of Sir Richard Champernowne of Modbury, by his first wife Alice daughter of Thomas Lord Astley, and whose second wife was Katharine daughter of Sir Giles Daubeney.

Concerning this prettily named heiress Blanche Champernowne and her family, the prosaic and literal old itinerant Leland, gives us further notice, and, if his description of her be correct, takes much of the romance out of it,--

The genealogy is here somewhat confused, but Leland appears to have been trusting to memory only.

We have made pilgrimage to, and described what remains of the old ancestral home of the knight in Wiltshire, and our steps next lead us to the locality of the new one he possessed by right of his wife at Beer-Ferrers in Devon. Like all places situate on the estuaries of large rivers such as the Tamar, that are tidal, and fringed by creeks that run considerable distances inland, Beer-Ferrers on the land side is only to be reached by a circuitous route from Plymouth, and therefore we elect the easier and more direct approach to it, by aid of the iron horse to Saltash, and thence by boat.

The tide is well up, and a pleasant breeze soon speeds us on our way. We pass the Budshead creek, that extends inland to Tamerton-Foliot, and are soon opposite a second and somewhat larger opening that runs up to Maristow, where, at its far end, the sparkling Tavy, fresh from the granite boulders of Dartmoor, delivereth her waters into the salt bosom of the lower Tamar. At about mid-distance up the creek on its northern shore, a small compact village, with a square battlemented church tower rising in the midst, has its place on the bank that slopes gently down to the water's edge. Thither we steer our way, and making fast our little craft to the pier, or 'quay' as these landing places are locally termed, find ourselves at Beer-Ferrers.

After the victory of Bosworth, and Henry was seated on the throne, it came to Edgcumbe's chance to turn the tables on his adversary, and this he did most effectually. Tradition further relates, according to Lysons quoting from Tonkin, that,

"Sir Henry Bodrugan was in arms in Cornwall against the Earl of Richmond, that he was defeated on a moor, not far from his own castle by Sir Richard Edgcumbe and Trevanion, and that he made his escape by a desperate leap from the cliff into the sea, where a boat was ready to receive him, and fled to Ireland, when all his large estates, including Bodrugan Castle, described by Borlase "that there was nothing in Cornwall equal to it for magnificence" were forfeited to the Crown. Most of Bodrugan's estates, including the manor of St. Gorran were granted to Sir Richard Edgcumbe, and now belong to his descendants."

Two very remarkable and almost identically coincident escapes. The place where he jumped over the cliff at Dodman's Head, is still known as "Bodrugan's Leap."

As it hath happened to us aforetime, in many of our wanderings, in search of the former earthly habitations of those we were essaying to bring back to the stage of our thoughts, so also here,--successively of Ferrers, Champernowne and Willoughby,--all traces of their olden home have disappeared, and only a site with a name and a tradition remains to identify where stood their antient dwelling-place. Therefore our steps lead us back to that hallowed spot, where they, in common with us all, found their last and final home of eternal rest, there to seek for such memorials of them as may yet remain.

A glance into the chancel, although five centuries have flown, brings us face to face with the Founder and his wife. There--marvellously preserved--humbly postured on one knee, his glowing tinted proportions, amid the crimson interlacery, and quarrels of pale-pencilled leaflets, that fill the east window, arrayed in gilded chain-mail, silver genouill?res and sword-hilt, with the armories of his race, the dark bend and gleaming horse-shoes traversing both ailette and surcoat. In his raised hands he bears the offering of a grand church, having three spires, and over his head runs a legend that apparently reads " E WILL'S FERREYS ME FECIT." Fronting him in the adjoining light, with hands uplifted in prayer, kneels his wife Matilda Carminow, in snowy wimple and cover-chief, pink boddice and sleeves, with the broad bend of her husband's arms embroidered on her golden robe. The inscription above her head, seems to be confused and undecipherable. Studding the borders of the lights, interspersed among other ornaments, are the arms of Ferrers and Carminow, and a grand escutcheon similarly charged, and encircled with beautiful green-foliaged ornament occurs below.

Thus much for the history of the foundation of the arch-presbytery as depicted in the window; immediately beneath on the north side of the altar, upon a raised tomb of plain character, rest the recumbent effigies of the Founder and his wife, carved in stone, and habited almost exactly in duplicate of the figures limned on the glass above. Over them rises a beautiful pyramidal canopy, cusped below, flanked by pinnacles rising from the ground, the whole richly foliaged and finialed. In the upper spandrels are angels swinging censers. But the peculiarity of this memorial consists in the lower portion of the canopy being cut through the wall, and opening to the side-chapel or chamber that adjoins the chancel on that side, where its elevation is repeated, as in the church, but with much less ornament.

There appears to be only two examples of this fine style of monument found in the county, the other occurring in the Chapel of St. James, in Exeter Cathedral.

In the transept, which appears to be coeval with the chancel, in the east wall is a piscina, and the moulding immediately adjoining, marks the position of an altar that once had its position there. In a recess beneath a finely moulded arch at the north end under the window, is the effigy of a knight in chain-mail and surcoat, with shield, and hands grasping his sword, cross-legged,--the head raised and supported on a large bascinet-shaped helmet. The legs are destroyed to the knees, and of the lion on which his feet rested, only the paws remain. This figure is of contemporary date with the Founder in the chancel, with great probability is a Ferrers, and may represent his father, who was on the bede-roll of the foundation.

Here concludes our notices of the memorials of Ferrers, the first of the influential families Blanche Willoughby represented. Our next care, will, if it may be, to note any traces of the equally antient race that succeeded them at Beer, and gave to her, her maiden name of Champernowne.

This was the eldest brother of John Champernowne, to whom he succeeded at Beer, and uncle to Blanche Willoughby. Roger died 14 November, 1422.

Following these, our investigations naturally carry us on to note such remembrances of Willoughby as occur in the sacred edifice. There are several, actual and inferred, but our jottings must be stayed for the present, as the first memorial to that noble race is found elsewhere,--and our steps will return here after a while to conclude them.

Again we have recourse to our little craft, and crossing the bright Tamar, land on the Cornish side, and thence by a circuitous and winding lane of considerable length, find ourselves on the high road about halfway between the old half-maritime, half-inland borough of Saltash, and the equally antient half-mining, half-agricultural borough of Callington. As we steadily climb the gentle but continual ascent that leads to the old tinners' town, a grand and varied prospect surrounds us. Immediately in front looms the immense pyramidal mass of Hingston Down and Kit Hill rising over it, in all near eleven hundred feet above the tidal marge of the blue sea that gleams behind us, its crest garnished with many a tall chimney stack, the out-growth of that glamour of wealth so invincibly dear to the Cornishman's heart, that is always coming, but so seldom arrives, and whose witchery has been handed down from countless generations even long before old Leland's foot passed over it, and he made note of it as "being a hy hylle, and nere Tamar yn the easte part, baryn of his self, yt it is fertile by yielding of tynne both by water and dry warkes." Hence the distich,

"Hengston Down well yrought, Is worth London Town dear ybought,"

but whose smokeless chimneys now stand as the witness-ghosts of the hundreds of thousands of buried treasure sunk aforetime within its vast bosom, yet nevertheless rich to a degree in mineral wealth, and boundless resource of granite and clay of the finest quality, from which considerable returns have been made. To the right in the far distance rise the shadowy tors of Dartmoor in successive range, melting back and merging into the grey realms of cloud-land. On the left, clear cut into the bright evening sky, appears the magnificent boldly outlined mass of the Caradons, behind which the sun has just dipped, and a blue aerial haze of singular beauty and varying density, stretches down their side and unites them to the broad valley beneath. We pass the skirt of Viverdon Down, an immense common, susceptible of better cultivation, but now a fastness for game only, and rough food for young animals; albeit gay in its appointed season with wealth of heather and gorse, and, if neglected by man, glorified by the unseen touch of the Infinite,--

"How full of love must He In all things be, Who strews with beauty e'en the waste and wold, Who gives the moorland lark His purple heath-bower dark; The mountain bee, his wilderness of gold."

Quietly continuing our way, a short distance further brings us to the apex of the ascent, and as we begin to descend, before us is the 'tynner's towne' of Callington, with its granite-built, expressively-pinnacled church tower rising well above the clustering houses that surround it.

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